Follow my adventures as I worked my way through an Emergency Medicine residency in Buffalo, NY. From So. Cal to Western New York, with stops in four states (Wisconsin, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota) in between. It's been an incredible journey. Which continues on caldreamsquirrel.blogspot.com

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13 August 2010

Workings of the Mind

As I wrote before, for the last 3 weeks I have been on an elective in Neurosurgery. It's been a heady (hee hee) experience being back in the OR. Learning SO much about neuroanatomy. Since the beginning of the month, we have been on-call for spine, so I've also been getting quite the education about spinal lesions and learning how to read MRI's.

We've been rather busy due to "trauma season," and at times have affectionately nicknamed the Trauma ICU as "Turban City" since 90% of the patients are ours and have their heads wrapped following surgery or ventriculostomies.

During the last several weeks I've come to realize a few things:

- drunk anything is bad. It makes you drive carelessly and hit 70 year old grandmas who then bleed into their brains. It makes you jump on the hood of a car that then drives away, and you fall and fracture your skull and then bleed into your brain. It makes you jump off a porch causing you to break several bones in your spine which leave you with weakened legs and needing a urine bag because your bladder no longer works properly.

- you can be hurt by the ones you love. The guy whose name you tattooed on your shoulder can shoot you in the head and dump you by the side of the road. The family of your boyfriend can object to your relationship and cause broken bones in your face and head. Your drunk husband can roll over the car causing you to have massive brain injury and leaving you as helpless as your two young toddlers.

- walking down the street is dangerous. You can get shot at, run over, mugged, or just trip and fall. All of which can land you on our service. So is riding your bicycle, driving in a car, or flying in a plane.

- I like opening and closing surgical cases more than the actual procedure. I know, weird. But there's something very satisfying about gaining the exposure, identifying the lesion, then trying to cosmetically close the wound. While drilling and plating is interesting, once I've seen the anatomy I'm satisfied. I know, weird.

One more week then it's back to the E.D. for my final 11 shifts. We're on a countdown of 30 more days until I move from coast to coast... I've got to start thinking of new names for my blog...

I love your blog and most of the times, I can feel myself in the situation. I'm a general practitioner working as the emergency physician in the E.D of the only hospital in a small town far from the capital, in south Iran; I'd like to study emergency medicine, with all the exciting stories you face everyday, and I'd prefere starting my residency where enough facilities are accessible, but I don't know how emergency medicine is ranked in the US, is it difficult for a foreigner to match, for example like surgery as I've heard? thank you for sharing your experiences, and good luck on your currier.

I can't believe it is 3 weeks and you'll be done! I bet you are soooo very excited to relocate, be done with training, start making "real" money, etc!!

since I've been typing up op notes at my new job, I've thought about surgery and all involved with it. I can see why opening/closing would be enjoyable to do; it all sounds fascinating I do believe! (but I have found in my so very limited experience that the several neurosurgeons I transcribe for have the worst dictating voices, is that true where you are?)